Thursday, May 15, 2008

When Marvel officially announced Iron Man 2 for 2010 a few weeks ago, it was easily one of the most exciting news announcements made in a while. Almost everyone walked out of Iron Man wondering when we would see a sequel, because the potential for Iron Man kick even more ass is immense. Now that a date was set, we all sat back naturally thinking Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. and the whole crew would be back again. Unfortunately, at least for the moment, that doesn't seem to be the case. Ever since the announcement was made, Jon Favreau has been making it clear that he's not exactly 100% signed on for the sequel… yet.

Favreau first told EW.com in an interview after the release of Iron Man that, "there's no formal arrangement yet, but in theory we would all love to see it happen…" Now SlashFilm follows that up with more confirmation as of Tuesday this week. Favreau made an appearance on the Howard Stern Show, and told Howard that, "they haven't offered me anything yet," adding that "they're all talking - they want to do it, they even announced a date." So if you want to actually speak about this in terms of technicalities, no, Jon Favreau has not been signed to direct anything yet.

However, this just sounds like a classic case of Hollywood shifting before saying it's a done deal for four more years. Favreau will most likely be back on board, but they have to come back to him and sign him yet again. On Howard Stern, Favreau also revealed that Iron Man was probably made for around $140 million and his own cut was a mere $4 million. He only starts to make a small percentage more when the film begins to make a profit, which in Hollywood, is almost never. He explains that when a film is this successful, even the actors don't necessarily have to come back even if they've signed contracts.

"They're all signed for three but it doesn't work that way. That all goes out the window when you make $100 million dollars," said Favreau. "Because people want to have a good relationship with the people they are working with, and if they're making that kind of money, it's an understanding that they're going to negotiate."

That makes quite a bit of sense, but since most of us don't get paid in the millions for our jobs, we can't relate to the idea of negotiation on that level. However, I think it's important to clarify that although Favreau does confirm that he isn't signed on, it doesn't mean Marvel has lost their marbles and isn't going to bring anyone back. They're much smarter than that, I just think Favreau is a little more public than anyone ever before. As in, Hollywood folk usually keep these sort of things to themselves when a sequel is announced. And we only hear about it months later when all the contracts have been signed again. Favreau just prefers to connect with the fans so much that we sometimes hear more than we maybe should.

So there you have it. Don't start flipping out and calling your friends and bitching out Marvel for being idiots just yet. Iron Man 2 won't even hit theaters until April 30th, 2010, which means they wouldn't need to start production until 2009. I'm willing to bet that not only will Jon Favreau be back on Iron Man 2, but so will Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, and Gwyneth Paltrow. This is going to be the sequel we want, but early details like this are just seeping out way too early. All we need to think about fans is how awesome Iron Man 2 will be and how excited we should get when they finally do announced the details for the sequel!